Travis Software Official Blog

We have identified a list of tables that should be and will be removed from the Access database built when requesting the Relational API. Many of these tables contain data that can be found by using other core tables that are provided. Several of these tables contain data only needed for WebCOBRA. This will reduce the size and increasing the speed of the database the system needs to build and which you need to download by a significant amount.

With this most recent release of Travis Cobra our customers can expect the following added functionalities:

As of October 26, 2009 users of WebCOBRA.com should notice an improvement in their ability to more rapidly enter benefit plan premium rate changes. They will also see faster auto-generation of letters created as a result of entries made during the workday.

Travis Software has grown substantially in 2009, and as with most software companies both our customers and our staff have fueled that growth. We would like to thank our customers for their support of Travis this past year.

Over the past year the development team here at Travis has gone through a metamorphosis. The team has added several developers, as well as 2 people to our Quality Control team. We are making changes to the core of each of our systems to achieve better performance, greater stability and a better customer experience. We continue to add features that our customers have requested through our Idea Book (ideabook.travisoft.com)

Thanks to a recommendation from Sheffield Olson McQueen, one of our TPA customers whose clients have received audit notices from the IRS about ARRA subsidy audits, a new ARRA Audit Report can be found in WebCOBRA’s Report module. The report will list all ARRA receipents and all applicable premiums, subsidies, and payment totals to make IRS auditing a little easier. The report is fashioned in accordance with the information requested by the IRS for ARRA premium subsidy audits.

You can begin using this report as soon as October 14, 2009 in WebCOBRA, a sample is shown below:

The HITECH Act was signed by President Obama on February 17, 2009, coincident with the ARRA law. Most of the HITECH provisions go into effect on February 17, 2010, and HITECH makes significant changes to the HIPAA laws and rules, many of which will significantly impact the relationships between group health plans (and other “covered entities”) and their Business Associates. HITECH adopts a number of changes to HIPAA to significantly broaden the definition of a breach of Protected Health Information (PHI), defines what needs to be done when breaches of PHI occur, and for the first time impose some mind-boggling penalties for breaches of PHI.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the ARRA changes to COBRA, which represent the most significant amendments to the COBRA law since its original enactment in 1986, are temporary. At least they may be temporary.

Travis Software’s system developers continue to work to further refine the ARRA modifications we first put in place for TravisCobra and WebCOBRA.com last February. Improvements such as changing the ARRA Premium Reduction report, making it easier for you to change a QB’s AEI status and further standardizing disbursement reporting are all scheduled to be released soon for both TravisCobra and WebCOBRA.com.